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IF we were to conduct a public poll on the suitability of the leadership at Zifa today, I’m certain the scale would tilt against Cuthbert Dube and his board.The tragedy of it all is that instead of talking about football players or coaches’ capabilities, the nation is drunk with a cocktail of doses about the politics at Zifa. And strangely too, Dube and his cronies do not seem to see a priest on a mountain of salt, this meaning they do not seem to see the obvious, or they choose to ignore it.

You have to give it to Zifa chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze for bravely defending his base, for bravely defending his boss and taking a dig at anyone who questions how football is run, labelling who ever suggests Dube is letting the nation down a Jezebel of Football.

And even if there are calls to have the Zifa chief executive officer fired, such calls are futile because he has over the years won the trust of the man who has the power to show him the exit door. Never mind what the rest of the Zifa board says  about ‘Papa’ as he is known in football circles, they do not have the mandate to kick him out.

Such is the nature of football, the beautiful game run by thugs, to use the cliché, which protects those at the centre of power, and likewise, no one is allowed to pass a vote of no confidence on Fifa president Sepp Blatter, and no one can pass a vote of no confidence on Zifa president Dube, including those who elected him. How laughable is that!

And the contempt of everything at Zifa started soon after the elections, with the Minister of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, Professor Jonathan Moyo, saying the 2014 Zifa elections were a “sham.”

Dube won with 44 votes against 14 for Trevor Carelse-Juul in the second round of voting after a clear winner did not emerge in the first round as per the rules.

Moyo, however, said it had to be stated “without fear or favour that the outcome of these elections was indecent and defied all rationality and purpose. What exactly was endorsed by this scandalous vote?

“Zimbabwean soccer today is clearly in the doldrums in every respect with its administration characterised by breath taking chaos, incompetence and corruption with no precedence since our independence in 1980,” he said.

Moyo said Zimbabwe’s football was also in the doldrums under Dube’s charge, adding the official had “nothing to show” for his time as Zifa boss and “nothing different, new or better to offer”.

With a year in office, Dube is yet to achieve anything or at least meet promises he made on his election manifesto, with the Warriors failing to make it to the Africa Cup of Nations finals again under his leadership, and the organisation sliding further into debt and losing perhaps all court battles resulting in the Messenger of Court literally making daily trips to Zifa offices to attach property armed with claims for either unpaid service providers or former workers fired illegally.

This week, Deputy Sports Minister Tabeth Kanengoni-Malinga came out with guns blazing, telling Parliament that the government was fed up with goings-on at Zifa and would not mind dissolving the board even if that would attract a ban from Fifa, likely to be two years.

“So we’re going to look at everything that needs to be done and like I said if Fifa is going to ban us then that’s fine, we’re okay with that because what we want is to go to the drawing board, build our team, qualify for all the tournaments we need to qualify for and we want to go back to the Zimbabwe Warriors that we know, we want to go back to those days.

“It’s a waste of money to continue doing what we’re doing now with no results. But it’s better to actually put in resources into rebuilding and rebuilding a proper football association, a proper team.”

From the look of things, it appears the ministry wants to be strong handed for once and force back normalcy, and there will be casualties along the way. Some board members, who genuinely want to serve this beautiful nation and the beautiful game, who have been rendered dysfunctional by the system at Zifa, will fall by the way side, and that will be collateral damage, the same as the Fifa ban the nation risks once the government intervenes in the running of football.

But we have seen such cases in other countries like Nigeria where governments have intervened and got Fifa banning them, but they have come back stronger and more organised than before to claim their place in the sun of African football. Perhaps Dube should do the honourable thing and resign, or remain in office and attract the full wrath of government and worse still become the fall guy when the whole country is banned. The thing here is Dube has his side of the story, but unfortunately who cares to listen now!

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